Absurdly picky when buying a new guitar.

[Silverman]

I often shop at guitar center, not because I like to, but because they have a 45 day return policy. Once, I took home and returned 5 guitars before finding one I like.

For me, sometimes it's hard to get a good feel for a guitar in a store. It's loud and and distracting and difficult to notice a guitar's true characteristics until you've had some good one one one time with it with an amp your familiar with.

I have become so picky that I refuse to accept any less than a pristine example of any given make/model. I am sure this is annoying to the manager, and I hate being a pain in the ass but If i'm paying for new guitar, I want to make sure that it isn't a dud. It also give me the advantage of being able to try out different brands and models to see whether or not they are for me instead of being locked into my first choice

My obsessiveness is what originally endeared me to PRS. As consumer I find their stellar QC to be their best characteristic.
Is anyone else like this?

 

[Huggy Love]

Everyone else is like this.

 

[toothace]

Yep. Pretty much everyone here.

 

[bodia]

Ditto

 

[Xav22001]

It's great that you live in an area where you have the luxury of trying guitars in your rig and returning them if necessary!

I bought my first 2 Gibsons (SG Goddess & Les Paul Studio Satin) online without ever playing them before. It didn't seem shocking at the time, I lived in the south of France and the local shops had a pretty limited selection, and the few American made guitars were pretty overpriced.

My PRS (most recent purchase) is the first guitar where a friend and I called up the local music chain (in Hong Kong), asked them to have a decent array of PRS guitars ready and tried them back to back for an hour to pick the sweetest sounding one.
Anyway if you have the luxury of bringing them back, I guess it's cool if you can try them with your actual rig.

 

[gush]

I hate trying to play anything at GC.

 

[garrett]

Yup. Their impressive consistency and build quality were big factors that attracted me in the late 90's and they've only gotten better since. I just pick the one with the look and weight I like. I've yet to be let down.

 

[László]

I'd feel terrible taking 5 guitars home and bringing them back to the store. I like to think I can play a guitar even at a store like GC and figure out its qualities. But I wouldn't want a dud (I've never had a dud PRS though).

However...

I get them all from a PRS dealer named Jack Gretz, who has a great ear, knows my tastes after being a good customer for the past 15 years, and picks winners for me. He even sends short clips of guitars I'm interested in, something that really helps me decide.

 

[Bran_Flakes]

While I don't use it that often (maybe once in the past year or so), I always ask about the return policy for the store that I'm purchasing at, whether it's Guitar Center or a different small music store in the area (mainly just for particularly expensive pieces of gear..at least enough time to make sure it works well with what I got at home and I don't regret it after a week). Usually the smaller ones don't offer return policies, but they'll often offer store credit if I find it doesn't sound as well as I think it will (I've never had to do this option before).

Ironically my main guitar was a gift a few years ago that was ordered online and that I had never played before, so sometimes things just fall into place

 

[flux]

I'd feel terrible taking 5 guitars home and bringing them back to the store.

Having spent many moons as the guy behind the sales counter, I'm exactly the same way. There's certainly nothing wrong with being extra picky or discerning as our tastes can be demanding and fall into the land of high price points. For me personally there are limits to how far I'd go before feeling like I'm just torturing employees. In the early days of the Internet, however, I once had the hots for a non-PRS custom shop model that prompted me to drive all the way across the state of Michigan to acquire, only to discover that in person it was a disgustingly shop-worn piece that also likely should have been marked B-stock to begin with (I so wanted to torture someone that day). That was just a sickening bummer, and thankfully the only one of its kind in my instrument-shopping history.

I'm a real stickler for details, fit & finish and the like, but never had problems coping with busy sales floors; usually there's a quiet spot somewhere to be had with little effort (and a big kudos to shops that set up viewings by appointment or after hours). But if I were commissioner, I'd install a couple of isolation rooms in every shop.

 

[Silverman]

I'd feel terrible taking 5 guitars home and bringing them back to the store. I like to think I can play a guitar even at a store like GC and figure out its qualities. But I wouldn't want a dud (I've never had a dud PRS though).

However...

I get them all from a PRS dealer named Jack Gretz, who has a great ear, knows my tastes after being a good customer for the past 15 years, and picks winners for me. He even sends short clips of guitars I'm interested in, something that really helps me decide.

Yup. That's why I made this post. I feel like an ******* when I end up rotating GC stock. A while back, a GC employee told me that the salesmen will get bitched at for not matching the right product with the right customer if the manager sees a customer with a stack of receipts stapled together. After hearing this, the next time I was looking for a guitar, I returned different guitars to different stores to take the heat off the employee. I live in Chicago, so there is a ton of both retail and local stores

Having said all that, I only pull this stunt at GC. I know that it is probably frustrating to the manager, but I' much more concerned about the wellbeing of a small business than a massive retail conglomerate. If I buy something at my local shop, it's staying.

 

[vchizzle]

It actually boggles my mind that GC has that long of a return policy. I've never understood it. I will admit that I have bought a couple things from GC over the years to see if they would work for me or not, knowing I wouldn't feel terrible returning it if it didn't trip my trigger. It's been very few things though over a long period of time. I'm picky about my guitars, but less so about condition. I mean, a new guitar should look new and a used guitar should be in the condition described, without surprises.

I've never returned anything to our dealer friends here. I'd feel guilty. Unless there was something wrong with the item or I hated it, I'd look to exchange if possible.

 

[Mike Duncan]

I returned one guitar once. It was to a well respected dealer and friend...he was awesome about it and another forum member snatched the guitar up.

 

[Bumpy Dog]

I must admit, when I bought my first Les Paul, I tried at least a dozen in store before I found the one that worked for me. None of the others felt right, played right or sounded right. I had saved up for several years and was really disappointed by the whole buying experience, rather than the pleasure of finally owning a guitar I has aspired to own for so long, I was concerned that I wouldn't get on with it once I got it home - When I bought my PRS Studio and my CU24, I picked them off the shelf because I liked the way they looked and was amazed by the way they both played so well straight away. In each case I knew immediately that they were coming home with me. There's a lot to be said for consistency and it seems PRS does that so much better than many other manufacturers. I have never played a 'bad' one.